So if Zimmerman profiled Martin, it's no small irony that in Arizona, the neighborhood watch volunteer would be at risk for being stopped by the cops.

You know, for "driving while brown."

Still, there is the reality that race affects how people are charged and convicted in this country. And blacks get the worst of it.

Stats are not hard to come by.

For instance, according to the DC-based research and advocacy group the Sentencing Project, "Black males have a 32% chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives; Hispanic males have a 17% chance; white males have a 6% chance."

The same group reports that, "38% of people in state or federal prisons were Black, 34% were white, and 23% were Hispanic in 2011."

For most, the disparities in how different races and ethnicities are treated by law enforcement and the justice system are intuitive.

Along these lines, I'm fond of an observation from comedian D.L. Hughley:

"Everyone wants to be black till the cops roll up."

As the Zimmerman trial was under way, someone forwarded me a now-infamous chain email, featuring a photo of the rapper Game, alleging the photo was Trayvon Martin, though Game is much older, and muscular.

The anonymous author claimed Martin was not the sweet-smiling kid in images offered by the media, but a menacing "thug" as personified by Game.

This is what a lot of scared white folks wanted to see in Martin. The kid's minor scrapes with authority became, in their minds, the reason why he deserved his fate.

Never mind Zimmerman's own scrapes with the law -- as an adult.

I guess you could call the Game email "online profiling," similar to the street-level profiling Zimmerman was accused of, and the profiling, proved in federal court, that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is guilty of.

Then there's the issue of guns.

Here in Arizona, the law makes it a little too easy to kill and claim self-defense, as the burden's on the prosecution to prove otherwise.

At least Zimmerman had some injuries, a bloody nose and lacerations on the back of his head.

In two high-profile, Arizona examples of supposed self-defense, those of Roger Garfierld and Harold Fish, there was nothing of the kind.

In both cases, all parties were white. Fish and Garfield each felt their lives were threatened because another man was advancing on them. Both of the men they shot and killed were homeless.

Arizona law favors the slayers. Fish's conviction was thrown out, after the state legislature changed the law to help him. He was not retried.